Protip: If you grew up in the 90s and 2000s with NES/Gen/SNES/N64/PS1/DC/Cube/PS2, you are most likely a Japanese Jazz Fusion sleeper fan without knowing it. Look for T-Square, Casiopea, and Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Just looked up T Square. Holy SHIT do they have a huge catalog! I’ve been jumping around and I’m adoring their colorful arrangements and musicianship. Instantly hooked. Looks like I just found my new obsession for the next year. THANK YOU
There's an ancient interview with Earthbound's Itoi and the two composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka talking about the music that inspired the game's sound. Loveless was the inspiration for Giygas' final battle's noisey atmosphere.
If you can provide a link for this, please do. I think there is a big list of influences on RateYourMusic but off the top of my head I do not remember MBV being included!
@@ZeroOdysseyIt's from the very same one. "Known in Japan as "MyBlo", they’ve got this guitar playing constant, unstable, mixed noise, almost like a racket, lyrics that seem to fade away, and a pounding rhythm. I love it I love it I love it. Even now I’m still on the hunt for hands that try to imitate their sound. The "flickering" quality of MOTHER2’s music was largely influenced by this band. As was "Itoi’s Late Night Keyboard". And Giyg."
interestingly, the track "giygas disintegrates" in particular was recently found to have sampled an entirely different, fairly obscure shoegaze band, the song sampled being darkest dreams by his name is alive. not denying mbv's influence at all, just wanted throw this out here. it's a really cool song and it's crazy how deep the composers went at a time where sampling in videogames was far from commonplace.
Loveless is a work of art. The album itself might of bankrupt the label, and has some weird stories surrounding it. All of my bloody valentines discography is interesting.
Of course shoegaze would be fitting for a VN where a guy stares at the ground most of the time. I've listened to so many Japanese indie bands within the math/shoegaze/post rock hemisphere, and I wonder why many games don't have music like them. For example, I think MOTFD's 'She is inside He is outside' would be a killer boss theme. Luckily there's indie talent in anime/games. I know the haisuinonasa guy has done OPs, and toe worked in sonny boy. If I were to make a game, I'll be damn sure to put shoegaze in it.
@@theplasticeyes"my dead girlfriend" comes to mind, would definitely reccommend listening to the entirety of "hades (the nine stages of change at the deceased remains)" And while not inherently shoegaze, i feel i want to shout out tricot as well as some of their music incorporates similar things to shoegaze. Not a japanese band, but alison's halo is another good one. Cocteau twins and my bloody valentine are some of the most well known ones but if you haven't checked them out then do so already! Some of the best shoegaze i've listened to for sure. MBV's "sonic landscape" as kevin shields might have called it, makes you feel like you're slowly floating into heaven at times While cocteau twins makes you drown in bliss with their ethereal sound. Sorry for the wall of text but i really wanted to share these great bands so other can experience them for the first time and feel like i did back when i discovered them.
@@theplasticeyesMOTFD in the original post is short for “Mass of the Fermenting Dregs”. Great band, along with the other Japanese bands EyeslikeMeteors recommended.
Loveless actually got way more expansion lore wise in crisis core, where it was first established as an poem and prophecy integral to the expanded story of FF7. The rebirth play was very cool to see.
I was super into shoegaze back in the early 90s, and Swervedriver were absolutely a shoegazer band, whether or not they wanted to be. An interesting tangent is to go the opposite direction and look at shoegaze bands whose music has video-game sound elements. m83's early album “Dead Cities…” is a perfect example - it’s like MBV where most of the guitars have been replaced by 8-bit synths.
there's an early M83 track ("Sitting") that straight up samples a boss theme from Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter! there also was a shoegaze band named The Depreciation Guild, who basically used the NES sound chip as a rhythm section replacement
Good to see The Sleepwalk getting some recognition. Warp Wet Woods is incredible, but so is the rest of their discography. Trippy, beautiful, and chaotic. One of a kind
Shin Megami Tensei V is actually how I found out about shoegaze. Someone mentioned it in the comments of a OST video and I've been loving it ever since.
as a lifelong fifa sweat and shoegaze fan i found the slowdive crossover very satisfying lol. fifa has always had super diverse soundtracks but even i was slightly surprised to see them on there when the game released back then! great vid
Speaking of Shin Megami Tensei V, wouldn't the track "Da'at: Tennozu" count as an example of shoegaze? It's the first music you hear in the second area of the game and I found it really added to the atmosphere.
End of Small Sanctuary was my gateway into shoegaze, as soon as I heard it I started searching everywhere for music that gave me the same feeling that track did.
That NMH2 song literally got me into shoegaze. I was listening to the soundtrack and got to the name "Shoegazer Watched the Stars." I've never even seen the word "shoegaze" before. Obviously I knew both shoe and gaze, but combining them made no sense to me. Like... just looking at shoes? So then I started googling and... well, fast forward few years and I was almost crying at a Slowdive concert few weeks ago. Wonderful genre. Sounds like a mermaid diving into a black hole.
I just listened to that track (NMH2 is the only game in the series I haven't played) and it doesn't sound very shoegaze-y to me. Also very nice that you were able to see Slowdive. I probably never will since I don't live in a country that they likely won't visit sadly
@@Walamonga1313 Yeah, that song is not shoegaze at all. Still a cool song, though. Someone should make a shoegaze version, that'd be sick. "Shoegazer Watched the Stars, but it's actually shoegaze" And I also never thought I'd see Slowdive, but they were at a festival I went to. They might not visit your country, but you never know what's gonna happen. Maybe they will. Or maybe you will move and have an opportunity to see them. Don't lose heart.
Noise rock: heavy guitar effects, the most important feature, present in 60% of their songs at least, is noise, harsh distortion, guitars and bass and drums that sound loud, and melody is not at all essential. Noise rock is experimental in nature, and the band that better exemplifies this is, of course, Sonic Youth, specially the album «Confusion is Sex» and the EP «Kill Yr Idols». Dream pop: guitar distortion but melody and sweet voices are present in at least 60% of their songs, but atmosphere is also prominent. The music is in general more straightforward and less experimental (it's pop). The two artists that better express this style are Cocteau Twins later recordings («Heaven or Las Vegas» and later productions), and Faye Wong; listen to her album Fuzao (浮躁). Shoegaze: Shoegaze and dream pop are largely interchangeable but only when it comes to a dream pop segment that relies more on effects and distortion, atmosphere and texture, and less in melody and simple compositions. Heavy distortion but not too loud, true shoegaze is like noise rock experiments but the noise is not very noisy. One band that captures perfectly what shoegaze is, is lovesliescrushing (the album "Bloweyelashwish" is their best). All of this is, of course, open to discussion and interpretation, as all art and subjective things are, but in my experience (having been listening to some of this music since the early to mid 90s), this is a good way to tell the difference. In the end, all of these styles have something of value for anyone who really wants to go deeper into alternative and underground music. You know what genre of music is even less used in video games? Black metal. Only the alternate/DLC soundtrack for Mortal Shell has been composed by a trve black metal lengend: Rotting Christ, and there's a black metal song buried deep into Cyberpunk 2077 songs, or was in in the cartoon? I don't remember. But other than that? Nope.
I don’t think confusion is sex actually uses heavy guitar effects at all. It’s mostly just light distortion and creative use of screwdrivers and drumsticks. Really cool album, sonic youth were just on another level for most of their career.
@@Chris-mc2dt Yeah, I love all of Sonic Youth's work - but 'Confusion is Sex' stands out for them basically doing weird theatrical foley art shit with their guitars. Can't remember which track it is, but the one where they make spooky cathedral bell chimes is an absolute highlight.
I think I’m sort of happy Shoegaze isn’t in more media. A big draw to me with Shoegaze is how emotional it is, it’s entirely artful in my mind. So to see Shoegaze used by corporations instead of artists because some marketing rep thought it’d be good for sales would cheapen it to me. Not to say I wouldn’t love to hear more indie games and productions use it!
When I went to see My Bloody Valentine perform during their 2009 tour (which I think started in 2008 but I can't remember, I just know that when I saw them at the WaMu in Seattle it was April 2009), I saw a not insignificant amount of Swervedriver shirts. Whatever the band wants to say, fans of the genre consider them part of it!
I know it's not what most people think of when they think of shoegaze but I would kill to hear an original soundtrack to a video game that sounds like You Made Me Realise and Feed Me With Your Kiss.
You missed Life is Strange Before the Storm which soundtrack was done by the band "Daughter". A lot of it is straight up Shoegaze and you can get the soundtrack on streaming platforms. Big recommend.
hey there! im an indie game dev and composer - wanted to share the overworld song (a sudajii's shade, noon sky drifting by) for my game angeline era has some shoegaze elements - i'm a big fan of the sleepwalk. The song "another summer on my own" from the OST does as well!
Great video! I appreciate the SMTV shoutout. Killer soundtrack. I'd like to recommend the latest EP by Full Body 2. I've been calling it "SNESgaze" as it's definitely got some samples and influence from soundtracks of that era.
Unsure if anyone mentioned the obvious music games of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but if not I’ll just say their inclusion of shoegaze is pretty limited. Lush had one song on the RB2 disc and one more as DLC, but other than that, RB4 had select showing from the new school of shoegaze crossovers like Wednesday and Teenage Wrists, and a bunch of Deftones songs, though you’d be stretching to call them a shoegaze band even if they had included Be Quiet And Drive or songs like that.
I want to add Subarashiki Hibi (Wonderful Everyday) ending of the Zakuro's route (Looking Glass Insect) it's a insane bleak shoegaze song, i think it has more grunge with wall of noise a la julie but in 2010 in a genre i'm calling post-grunge (zoomergaze but i think the strict definition is post-gronge). The song itself Shuumatsu no Bishou is by far one of the most depressing songs of all times giving the context of the story, i don't know what kind of black magic KeroQ used to make a song so hauntingly depressing and bleak but they did it. If you like songs like Deep Deep by HANL or Kinoko Teikoku, i heavely recommend it, also play SubaHibi, it's an amazing VN but why heavy topics.
@Flapjack483 FF is more alternative rock and grunge with mix of indie rock. Post Grunge in my definition is more grunge oriented with Shoegaze. The grunge is noise with punk mix, so the ethereal and dreamy aspect get enforced get harsher.
Seeing this song from SubaHibi mentioned in tandem with HANL is the ultra-niche stuff that I'd think no one else on this planet would share with me, and yet here it is on a RU-vid video that just happened to be recommended to me lmao.
@@dogltd6632 you'd be surprised, people that like subahibi gravitate towards works like HANL. Its anime + existential dread + niche music, the triads of depresso expresso
It's really a genre that needs to be in more games-plenty of gaming's best tracks are very moody pieces that could fit the bill just by changing the instruments. Excellent video, subbed!
I liked the gitaroo man mention here especially since it was referencing probably one of the most impactful levels (in my opinion) I love that game so much
As someone who is currently making an RPG Maker game with music exclusively from my friends' shoegaze bands this video was right up my alley. It's still _very_ early in development so don't expect to hear about it for a while.
Blackgaze is probably my favorite shoegaze subgenre, it combines the harsh and distorted screams of black metal with the beutifull atmospheres that shoegaze can create, it would be cool for a game to have it in it!
ive been watching since your gitaroo man review which was my first and favorite rhythm game ive ever played. shoegaze is my favorite genre ever actually. i was surprised to hear swervedriver had tracks in both road rash and burnout paradise, as i love swervedriver and burnout paradise was my childhood. the sleepwalk track was so good that i legit bought moon remix rpg adventure finally after being on the fence on buying it for years, and will be checking out an album by the sleepwalk soon. and i never knew that the loveless poster in ff7 was actually a nod to my bloody valentine, i assumed it was a coincidence. i wish i could think of video game music that categorizes as shoegaze but none come to mind unfortunately, surprisingly a rarity in the medium. the only one that comes to mind that wasnt mentioned in the video is maybe the almighty from persona 4? love your channel, your vids are always fascinating
I slept on swervedriver for far too long, they’ve quickly become one of my favorites of all time. Thanks for sticking around since the beginning, it means a lot. Hope you enjoy moon!
Great video! "The Sleepwalk" is a project by Masaki Oshima AKA WATCHMAN. He had another shoegaze project called "Sadesper Record" that he did with NARASAKI of Coaltar of the Deepers fame. TL;DR, if you like that Sleepwalk track check out Sadesper Record and Coaltar of the Deepers for more classic Japanese shoegaze excellence.
also for saints row 2 the radio also included "Stars" by Hum but it was categorized on the metal radio station. sr2 had a shit ton of random songs mixed into it that banged
I was looking for more shoegaze tunes to request on a weekly video game music show broadcast and streamed by a college radio station, and BAM, your video popped up! You've got awesome recommendations! 👍💯 Minikui Mojika no Ko OST piqued my interest at first (shoegaze and noise rock FTW!), then I got hooked on Soft Science's "Nothing" from Necrobarista. (I had that tune aired.) But now The Home Conversion takes the cake. Their music is criminally and severely underrated, though lots of gamers totally love it. (Yes, I've just had two of their tracks aired as well.) Their NEON STRUCT OST albums are total bangers. Synthwave/synth pop and shoegaze = KILLER combo! 👍💯 Sadly, the band is no longer active. Apparently, the members (brother and sister) are doing their own thing separately. Being a My Bloody Valentine fan, I was pleasantly surprised to find out they got shout-outs in video games. I wouldn't expect Slowdive to make an appearance either. I'm learning something new every day! 😊 A video on post-rock in video games would be totally awesome! 🎸💯 I've found a few bands and cover artists in that genre, but I'd love to discover more of them.
Ah, man. Nail on the head. Traverse Town is a specific trigger for me, too - back in my older brother's bedroom while he was at work, using the PS2 while I could, fucking around in KH not knowing what to do. Great video.
i dont know if it fully counts since its a little closer to dreampop than shoegaze but “The Final Smile” ending theme from the Visual Novel Subahibi definitely teeters on the edge of shoegaze
Awesome awesome video, one inclusion I think you would enjoy is Armored Core, which had a ton of shoe gaze songs by the inhouse composer/band FreQuency, even armored core 6 had a few of these songs but not as frequently as previous entries. Look into songs like Thinker and Stargazer for a good overview its worth noting Moon RPG was by the Mario RPG staff, it inspired Undertale and Toby Fox helped rerelease Moon on Steam. Onion Games still makes awesome games like Black Bird
So glad this video came up in my recommendations, new sub here for sure. Im a shoegaze lover and i agree with your silent hill 2 take i always felt like it had that vibe.
Fun fact about NMH: suda51 named his studio after the final track on Rides most iconic album. He took the nane of Grasshopper and nsned his studio Grasshopper menufacturer.
Good video! I'm surpised that no tracks from the Life is Strange series made the list. They might have some of the best representations of shoegaze for an emotionally narrative-driven game series, at least in my experience. Especially the main menu theme from LiS: Before the Storm, which has a pretty fair resemblance to "Sing" by Slowdive, as well as the frequent inclusion of tracks from the dream-pop group Far Caspian in their soundtracks.
You could’ve included The Reverse Will for the Silent Hill section as well. Trip hop mixed with layers of synths and samples that emulate the sound of shoegaze super well.
I thought this would be about actual game music and not licenced music, but you should look at the soundtracks to Skeleton Krew (Genesis) and Jorōgumo (PC-98).
Wow. I know they said it was hard to find information for this video but it's crazy that one of the "big three" shoegaze bands had a song in a video game and it wasn't mentioned.
Wonderful theme for a video! I've always felt that Resident Evil : Dead Aim Save room theme, while not really being shoegazer per se, is an ambient texture that has something similar going on. I think there could be a lot of video game tracks that at least are really close to what could be called shoegaze. It would be wonderful if you would make several of these videos, maybe even going into analysing singular tracks. The problem that eventually would come with this, is that what actually purely video game themes could fill the label, would certainly quite fast become divisive- but it could be interesting theme to dig deeper into. And people disagreeing with you could be great engagement! 😂 "Tasca's theme" from Guild Wars is one fairly obscure track, which isnt noisy guitar walls at all, but like with the RE: Dead Aim save theme, is somewhat ethereal, droney and repetitive. I totally get what you say about Silent Hill 2 ost and completely agree. The spirit of shoegaze is there, "Betrayal " being a prime example. I personally would define shoegazer-y video game music somewhat loosely- not necessarily noisy, but droney, hypnotic and ethereal would be traits that can be found in video game music more easily- and I'd argue these traits are found in all the example tracks I mentioned. Few really deep cuts if you're interested: Let it die - Waiting room theme Garage: Bad Dream Adventure- Sevage Canal
Dead Space 2 and 3 both featured some excellent shoegaze tracks for their end credits, DS2's in particular really added to the surreal, spacey, ominous nature of the game as a reflection of everything that transpired at the end of the game before Jason Graves' creepy orchestral strings lurk their way back in. They also used various songs from Russian Circles for some of the adverts, which I know are a bit more post metal than shoegaze, but still probably worth mentioning.
thank you so much for this video! I've always heard about shoegaze and was on the fringes of it and knew i liked it but never looked up what it was defined. Also referencing twin peaks definitely makes me want to check out neon struct cause ive had it since 2015 and never tried it
Final Fantasy 3 was my gateway. The soundtrack, for back then, was very impressive for the Super Nintendo. Sonic 3 for the genesis made up the other half.
Suprised that you actually mentioned Minikui mojika no ko, that one was a complete suprise to me. Definitely shows that you know your stuff Thinking about games that has some Shoegaze soundtracks I thought about Dropsy, but unfortunately it doesn't really count as the shoegaze tracks are on the Eternal Hug EP, which is more of an addendum to the game by its creator and no song plays in the game proper. Maybe as an honorabele mention I guess.
Max Payne 3 Soundtrack by Health would be a good fit in this list. Check out their song "TEARS". It plays in the airport shootout scene, such a memorable moment in the game.
First of all, Road Rage mention, wild. I haven't thought of that game in decades. Secondly, based on some of the songs you mentioned, I wonder of Yuriko's theme from Red Alert 3 Uprising counts.
I will add G# by Kitten in Fifa 13. I didnt know very much about music by then, but as many songs from that fifa, it wasn’t like anything I heard before. It wasn’t until 2019-20 that I would discover that that type of genre was called shoegaze
Not sure if it counts as shoegaze or just guitar noise but Saya no Uta has a lot of tracks with this soul crushing guitar playing that just reminds too much of the feeling I get when I listen to shoegaze
I'd like to point out the game Hypnospace Outlaw, it is set in alternate history early internet days and features a lot of music featuring fictional genres, one of those is "dirthaze" which is pretty much equivalent to shoegaze, as an example, the fictional band glamocaster has a bunch of pretty shoegazey songs, like I'm Afraid or Fuzzbucket, i think they're taken from an actual band since a lot of uploads on yt link to them but they're all dead so not sure exactly what's up with that, but it is shoegaze featured in games!
